This invention relates to liquid crystal cells and in particular to cells with ferroelectric liquid crystal fillings.
Liquid crystals have been employed in a number of different modes for producing display effects. These modes may be divided into two classes; field effect modes, and modes involving electrohydrodynamic instability. Electrohydrodynamic instability produces a scattering texture, and is essentially volatile insofar as the instability ceases when the electrical drive is removed. However bistable effects can be produced when using a smectic A material by terminating the drive in a way that causes the liquid crystal to relax into an optical scattering focal-conic static state. Field effect mode liquid crystal displays are typically not of light scattering type, but rely upon changes of optical propagation through the liquids that are revealed to the eye with the aid of polarisers. An example of an exception to this general rule is provided by the scattering type field effect mode described in Patent Specification No. 1,543,599. A significant advantage of field effect mode displays over electrodynamic mode lies in the smaller currents involved, and the attendant easing of the problems of electrochemical degradation.